PAEP brings professional visual and performing artists into schools and community sites throughout southeastern Pennsylvania inclusive of Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery, and Philadelphia counties, to engage all learners in hands-on arts-making activities, provide professional development to the field, and perform action research reporting on the impact of the arts on student learning both quantitatively and qualitatively.
PAEP is the regional partner of the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, Arts in Education Division in the areas of annual artist review and recommendations for the Directory of Pennsylvania Artists in Education, professional development for these artists, and arts residency design and management.
PAEP produces residencies and out of school time programs for the School District of Philadelphia, Archdiocese of Philadelphia, Charter School Corporations, the Free Library of Philadelphia, Pre-K schools, regional senior centers, and regional veterans’ centers across southeastern Pennsylvania. Many of PAEP’s programs also serve a national audience including work for the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards and the Poetry Out Loud Competitions for the National Endowment for the Arts. PAEP also designed and developed an arts integration model to improve student test scores in reading, mathematics, and science through two U. S. Department of Education, Office of Innovation and Improvement, Arts Model Development and Dissemination grants.
By better preparing artists and teachers to shape and deliver arts programming, by providing support for arts integrated school residencies, and through arts education research, assessment, and advocacy, PAEP’s program initiatives actively benefit the communities and the youth they serve in southeastern Pennsylvania.